Why is US healthcare so expensive?

I don't understand why simple checkups seem to cost thousands of dollars. Does it really COST that much to provide the service? Or is it that expensive simply because they are able to CHARGE that much? I'm not even interesting in debating universal health care or anything, I'm just curious as to why Americans seem to have to pay way more for the same services, than other countries. Why is the cost so high?

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everything's insanely marked up, it's just jewing

>Why is US healthcare so expensive?
American incompetence.

Jewish ruled medical industry.

This. Delivering a baby should not cost $100,000. An Advil tablet should not be 5$. No one is tackling this.

When you're on the floor dying the "free market" ceases to exist.

There are a lot of reasons that contribute, not one big reason.

One big reason is that hospitals cannot turn patients away from the ER whether they pay or not, so uninsured people, who are often very sick because they don't go to the doctor, come in and rack up tens of thousands of dollars in bills that will never be paid.

The cost gets passed onto everyone else.

Obama tried to fix this by mandating and subsidizing insurance coverage and you all shat a brick about it.

/thread

(((Insurance))), (((liability)))

They need to charge you in a gorillion dollars on the off chance they happen to accidentally kill you apparently and Americans and sue crazy, so this. As far as I can tell..

you know all those Mexicans that use the emergency rooms for every cough and sniffle? you're paying their bill when they don't.

>for profit
>too much administration rather than medical staff which costs a lot

>There are a lot of reasons that contribute, not one big reason.
Ohh there is one big reason for it, it's called CAPITALISM

>I don't understand why simple checkups seem to cost thousands of dollars.

They don't. Physicals at walk-in clinics are less than $100. I just went to the dentist yesterday, $129 for a cleaning and exam.

We have health insurance cartels that jack up prices

No one wants to break them up

This. I know more medical administrators then nurses or doctors. Since medicine is a for profit business they have to maximize profits at all times. I believe in capitalism but chasing profits fucks up our health system.

you eat a lot of junk food>more sick people>higher cost
lack of competition

It's jacked up because they know insurance companies will pay out.

If insurance didn't exist and you just paid out of pocket, it'd be much cheaper (but still pretty expensive, healthcare isn't cheap)

You mean business malpractice

It only gets really expensive when you have to have anything done. So an ultrasound costs 600 dollars. Xrays cost 1000 dollars. Staying the night at the hospital costs 1000 dollars too. However you have a whole team of professionals ensuring you stay alive so it does make sense that it costs something however since profits have to be made then hospital jacks up the price a bit more to make large profits.

One of the main reasons is, a lot of states have regulations in place that forces hospitals to cover the cost of procedures for poor individuals. The government pays them a set rate (despite what the doctor may ask for). Doctors/hospitals then shift the cost, to make up the difference, onto group insurance plans (insurance through employer) and individual plans. Most people don't see the difference since they get it through work, their employer eats the cost increases. (Employers then give less raises as a response but thats a different issue).

Now after Obamacare, there are a bunch of new regulations that insures have to follow (giving extra coverage to poor sick people). In theory that should make costs go up but Obama promised that the extra costs would be off set by more people paying into the system thanks to the mandate. In reality, a lot more people than expected decided it was cheaper to pay the tax penalty rather than buy a plan. Since less young healthy, wealthy people than expected entered into the plan the costs have to come from some where. And right now we have a combination of insurers losing profits in some states, doctors/hospitals making less and individual and employer plans going up.

The US healthcare is expensive because doctors have to make sure they dont do mistakes when diagnosing patients and treatment due to risks of being sued.

>Insurance pays
That is why our college education system is so fucked up too.
>government loans will pay it.

Low Productivity
Literally, that's it.
To make it less expensive, eliminate all taxation and most regulation.

>However you have a whole team of professionals ensuring you stay alive so it does make sense that it costs something however since profits have to be made then hospital jacks up the price a bit more to make large profits.

Homework assignment: What is the quarterly profit margin of HCA?

>ycharts.com/companies/HCA/gross_profit_margin
>83%
Is that pretty high?

>blame it all on regulations!

fuck off

Overvalued skill and sue-culture. Have a medical facility manned by self-taught personnel that passed a difficult standardized exam, also a disclaimer that you cannot sue if you seek help there, including anonymous ER visits. Bam, down to 30% the original cost. Thank me later.

CAPITALISM is the problem. Burgers are too brainwashed to see it.

I paid like $2000 for my kid to be born. We stayed at the hospital for 4 nights. All things considered it wasn't that bad.

Health costs aren't a bitch if you have an insurance plan worth a shit. Problem is, people would rather waste their money on cars and phones and stupid shit than a decent health insurance plan and then cry fowl when the mentality bites them in the ass. Not my fault you didn't know your choices have consequences.

>I paid like $2000 for my kid to be born

So you payed below cost?

Really makes me think.

It's not overvalued; there is a reason people from around the world come here to learn and practice medicine.

Do you know how much hospitals and doctors have to write off as losses? A shit fucking ton. Go ask anyone involved in medical billing or accounts receivable. People won't pay; they don't give a shit. They have to recoup that money somehow.

I paid the deductible and the coinsurance costs. Fancy fucking that.

If only health plans gave examples of medical costs related to the plan you purchased....oh wait, they do.

Nobody in congress supports cheaper drugs because they are bought off by big pharmaceutical lobby.

I keep hearing excuses, capitalism, insurance, tort law, regulation, captive market, the poor, administrators, every one of these has one (((thing))) in common.

The government intervened back 80 years ago. Before you could pay for a year's worth of healthcare with a day's wages. The doctors complained and the government messed with the free market and now everything is messed up.
youtu.be/fFoXyFmmGBQ
This is a good video to understand what happened.

Do straight margin, not gross. Gross is hard to compare between market sectors.

ycharts.com/companies/HCA/profit_margin

So an average of 5.37% over 5 years. Let's pick some random firms in other sectors:

>Monsanto: 9.58%
>Johnson & Johnson: 21.58%
>Pfizer: 19.22%

You can pick whichever you want. Check some insurers, like Cigna or Aetna.

Governor Connolly, wounded gravely during the JFK assassination, had a hospital bill of $2500ish. That was 1963. Shit didn't get bad until the 80s, kid.

What gets my goat is these people with fairly cheap, subsidized insurance plans with 5k deductibles who have no means to pay their deductible and act like they're getting ripped off when they get a bill.

If you're an adult, rich enough that you aren't on medicaid, and you don't have a few grand in the bank for emergencies, you should fuck off because you've been living irresponsibly. There is no other reason for you not to have that money there.

Most people are so financially irresponsible it's mind-boggling. Even people making pretty decent salaries will spend more than they earn. For what? Then they act like "the system" is unfair.

Let me guess, it all the Jews?
Or is it evil corporations?

Believe it or not, if the government hadn't intervened it would have been free. Lodging contracts would have made sure of that.

2500$ in 63 would be over 20 grand today.

For comparison, margin of profit on consumer electronics is about 7-11%.

still way more than i paid m8, way, way more

>democrat lecturing on fiscal responsibility

It's hard to get an exact accounting because nobody wants to shine a light on it, but I've seen estimates that 15% of our ENTIRE ECONOMY is friction in medical care... mostly insurance and all the related medical administration, billing, and claim processing. Doctors in other countries don't have the same size staff because they simply don't need it.

That is a HUGE chunk of the economy to cut out of the system overnight, and nobody in power really wants it to happen.

It is not true that a simple checkup costs thousands of dollars.

You're missing the point. You only paid 2k on top of insurance, but it's likely the hospital billed your insurance for 50k+
Yes, insurance companies usually pay less than they're billed, but the point still stands. Healthcare costs are so bloated that no one but the elite could possibly afford to take care of themselves without being insured.

Except he's right. It was cheaper for me to eat the income tax penalty than being forced to pay for monthly insurance and the key reason Obama care failed was because healthy people still didn't buy health insurance while plenty of sick people who were going to take more than what they put in did.

oh shit leaf that redpill is a bit too strong
could you imagine if there was a video game you could play to become a doctor that resulted in lower malpractice rates than what we have now? it wont happen because healthcare would get too cheap

>rich enough

Let me tell you first hand as a small business owner who purchased his insurance via the Marketplace:

If you list a dependent on your application they will be sent to Medicaid for approval no matter your annual income. I spent 2 hours on the phone with them when I signed up telling them I refuse Medicaid and it was absurd to think I qualified for it. They couldn't overrule it without proof of denial. Only after the representative became sympathetic to my cause did she tell me how to edit my application to avoid the Medicaid bullshit.

Obamacare was designed to designed to frustrate and fail.

American doctors are the best trained in the world and almost all of them specialize in a field unlike most foreign doctors whom are mostly just general practitioners. That level of qualification is why they can charge what they do once they've gone through their decade of residency

It's because so many niggers go to the ER and never pay, so if you can pay they're going to fuck you over with insane markups. My lung collapsed about a year ago (spontaneous pneumothorax, look it up) and there's a chance it can happen again. So I was feeling the same type of pain a few months ago and I ran over to the ER like they told me to. Turned out to be a muscle pull in my back, it cost me $1,300 to get a few blood tests and a fucking X-Ray.

Piece of shit fucking Jews.

That's goddamn cheap for 3 fucking bulletin wounds and 2 weeks in the hospital.

because muh free market wasn't suited for healthcare

we need government control

I don't give a shit. You couldn't pay me to live in a shithole like France.

You were saying?

Niggers and spics

No, they didn't. That shit is highly negotiated and structured. Do you think they accept and deny certain insurance plans on a whim? Fuck no; it's heavily negotiated.

It really is a "see what bullshit we can get away with" thing.
In its current state we quite literally need insurance companies to sift through the bullshit and talk down the price. Which you will notice is not supposed to be the primary function of health insurance, but inexplicably is.

2k for the deductible, plus what ever the monthly payment is, plus all the co pays = how much per year?
>deductible 2k
>insurance 200 month (probably more w/2k deductible)

that's 4400 for the year but I'm betting it's more

If they're the best, they should have no qualms with taking a difficult standardized test with others who self-studied. Nothing to worry about at all.

wow. I don't even understand how we fix this shit. Neither the democrats or the republicans seem to be really doing anything.

Insurance, Doctors and Big Pharma collusion.
When you go in for a procedure they won't and can't even tell you what the price is.
Price gouging is pretty easy when you are sick or in pain.

C.O.R.R.U.P.T.I.O.N.
plus unbridled greed and no ethics.

Medfag here, it's unfixable in its current state. What you have to understand is that NiggerCare™ Was intentionally designed to fail so that the Master Negro's democratic successor could usher in single payer.

Again, gross profit margin and net profit margin are not the same metric.

...

Hey medfag, who do they expect to do R&D with single payer?

Pasta now, but

If they're the best, they should have no qualms with taking a difficult standardized test with others who self-studied. Nothing to worry about at all.

I went to the er once after getting run over by an illegal Mexican. 2 hours 2 vicodin and 30 stiches.
Bill was 6700 for the hospital
And 1500 for the ambulance to drive me a milee and a half

Expect? That companies will continue to do it with lower profit margins. What will actually happen is they'll stop doing anything of value, as in the EU.

The point is that the costs are excessive, and the fact that we pay it over a long period of time (via your insurance plan) doesn't change that.
Healthcare, along with practically everything else about the economy, is seemingly engineered to ensure 99.9% of people live a life of either debt and rent or welfare.

Jews run the health industry.

(((Insurance companies))) make a 60%+ profit each and every year.

So when trump sucks on jewish forskin-candy he is basically selling out regular joes.

Thanks, kinda what I was afraid of.

This
Doctors drink their way through med. School. Pay someone to write their papers, want to work 15 hours a week, live in a 5 million dollar house, while having no fucking idea how to do their job because they were black out drunk for at least half of their schooling. Then tbey get the hospital sued for millions when they kill someone

We have a for-profit medical system. Profit means more money than at-cost. To maximize profits, they charge the highest amount possible. There is no law to stop them and no competition either. Drug manufacturers and insurance companies are jewwing Americans to death.

Do Americans actually have to pay for their treatment when a criminal injures them?

top kek

because they run the government

Medical bills have no impact on your credit, so it doesn't really matter.

Pfft, I wish I could've payed someone to write my papers. Then again I didn't drink in med school so...

Yes, to receive services you have to pay for them. Revolutionary.

Unlike UK, the US doesn't kill infants as policy.

Not true. If you don't pay it goes to collection and is reported. A 1 mile amberlance trip crushed my credit for 7 years.

Yep, this is why we should have standardized exams to qualify medical professionals. Since they're the best, they can easily compere with the self-study takers, right?

>be american
>get shot by dindu
>ambulance arrives
>ask for your card details
>say you'll pay for your treatment on finance
>go to hospital
>can't afford to have bullet surgically removed so have to opt for amputation instead
>realise you can no longer do your job with one leg
>boss fires you on the spot, no employment laws to protect you because republicans blocked them
>become unemployed
>can no longer afford to finance repayments on amputated limb
>bailiffs seize everything you own
>completely bankrupt, all your posessions gone, nobody will hire you with a missing limb
>landofthefree.jpg

>I paid the deductible and the coinsurance costs. Fancy fucking that.
When I say $100,000 i'm not talking your out of pocket. Did you check the itemized bill your insurance paid for? Thats what I am talking about when I say $100,000. If that was cheaper your costs would go down.

i remember a news article from a few years ago where this reporter went to hospitals to check out what they charge people. i just looked for it and managed to find it again..

$1000 for a toothbrush instead of $2 (500x)

$140 for a tylenol pill instead of $0.08 (1750x)

$53 for a pair of disposable latex gloves instead of $0.24 each (221x)

$23 for an alcohol swab instead of $0.03 (767x)

$4182 for an intravenous saline bag instead of
$102 (41x)

and they even charged per inch of bandage and tape that they used.

lol.. best healthcare in the world! best country ever! 'murica fuck yeah!

except the average working person can only afford like 1 tylenol pill a day worth of "care"

Most Americans couldn't even afford the extra $140 a day.

I think most people's answer are just rants coming from a place with no actual knowledge...... The real answer is very complicated...... For example, alot of people try to blame the insurances... But that's not really why. Insurance by law has to pay 80% of its income as payments for Healthcare. That means 20% is to be used for all administration costs and other things, even before taking a profit..... So at maximum, their profit can be a theoretical 20%. Let's be real, we aren't mad that our healthcare costs 20% more than expected. We would be a just as mad at a short stint in the hospital costing 16k as we would it costing 20k...... There are states with only 1 insurance company left on the market because the insurance companies are literally losing money there.

So it's the doctors then? I can personally attest to the fact that it is not! They get paid well compared to blue collar work but they are straddled in debt that takes them over a decade to pay off and they have very high stress jobs. The numbers show that staff costs are a small % of our actual healthcare costs.... So what's next? It's the greedy ceo's. False as well. They make a killing. That's for sure. But in a trillion dollar industry their take home pay amortized throughout the revenue would be savings of a few bucks max on most procedures. Even the whole "illegals and he poor draining the system" isn't a big cost. Yes it's a cost, and I can't remember the exact figures, but it's not that big.

CONTINUED IN REPLY

#1 continuation

On the other hand, there are a few other big costs. Lawsuits are a big drain on the entire system. I'm not even talking about the lawsuit payments, which in itself would be a very all portion of cost. I'm talking about the fact that when a doctor know that his license could be on the line by not doing EVERYTHING he possibly can, no matter how much of a waste of money it is, everyone gets unneeded procedures that have been shown to only benefit the patient in extreme cases. And to be honest, I get he doctors completely for wanted to cover his ass. Also, wouldn't you want you doctor to do everything he can? This really burdens the system.

#2 continuation

Lastly, we now have so much new technology that is possibly to do, but still very expensive because it isn't refined yet. Of course, it doesn't matter how expensive it is! Insurance got to cover it or the govt does, as long as it possibly helps. Billions are wasted on end of life procedures that extend the barely there corpses life by days, instead of letting them go naturally.

There is still even a lot more than this. But those are some of the big things. Once you start adding all that up, you realize, it all starts adding up to them having to charge $5 for tylonal just to make sure everyone gets paid. It's not any one single reason or some single entity being evil.

The Healthcare system is broken. But it's far from the easy fix people imply it could be. Are you ready to let your 80 yr old pappy go when there is a very expensive procedure that has a 1% chance of extending his life? Most people would say hell no and especially hat insurance is paying the brunt and Hey don't have to pay for it.

I can assure you that a delivery and hospital stay for a new born isn't $100k or anywhere close to it.

Doctors don't deliver babies anymore, permavirgin. I don't ever recall meeting or speaking with a doctor while at the hospital. It's all nurses and midwives.

...

Trump tried fixing this by trying to kick out all the illegals and you all shat a brick about it